High Hopes
by Val-Creative
Summary: Lance thrives off the chaos and neon lights and familiarity, but sometimes he prefers a quiet, ashy-heat stillness. During off hours, he meets Keith – a nobody like him, beautiful and a little weird. /Modern AU. Klance. Laith. Oneshot.


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Lance escapes his morning shift around nine, wiping off the glitter and primed, shiny makeup in the overcrowded dressing room full of his other coworkers. One of the women in a turquoise-sequin Burlesque corset and fishnets and a mini, velvet top-hat squeals and allows Lance to hug her and compliment her matching sequin bikini, smooching her on a powdery cheek.

He throws on his sweats and dodges his boss yelling at him over the roar of the live music. What about it — Lance clocked in _ten minutes_ late, wow? So is it the end of the world now?

Lance's truck is mostly a rattling piece of garbage, billowing out dark clouds of exhaust and threatening to break down at any second. He's gotta make due somehow. Various fast-food hamburger wrappers and french fry cartons with molding remnants litter the passenger's seat and the floor of the backseat. There's a half-drained, giant water bottle reeking like melting plastic next to a red tin of Altoids. Lance chucks the bottle onto the parking lot's blacktop with disregard, hopping inside his truck and switching on the AC. He pops two " _mints_ " and dry-swallows them, smacking his lips repeatedly.

The motor rattles and complains, as he swings a hard, jerking left, pulling onto the street.

It had been back-to-back for him for the past couple of days, with little prep for his acrobatic routine, and Lance can feel the soreness all the way through his muscles.

Many of the best and more inexpensive bars opened at these hours _aren't_ right in the middle of Las Vegas, but dotted along the outside the city's perimeters. Lance thrives off the chaos and neon lights and familiarity, but sometimes he prefers the quiet, ashy-heat stillness.

Nobody recognizes him or pays any attention when Lance chooses his favorite stool, ordering an irish red ale instead of the usual mojito and a half, budging his nail idly at the shreds of pale peanut shells. He thanks the bartender and sips on his beer, winking. A faint snicker erupts from Lance's mouth when she rolls her eyes benignly and tosses away her cleaning rag, choosing to ignore him.

Why are women so hard to _please_ out of showbiz?

The overhead lamps have been dimmed out in favor of the natural sunlight streaming in through the bar's windows. Cigarette smoke, thinning and imbued with blue, twirls around him and the four or so patrons grumbling to each other or into their phones, hacking.

Lance's ears pick up the rumble of a large motorcycle drawing closer, and then shutting off.

He peers curiously to the entrance, as it swings open and halos more bright white morning-light within this old, dusty bar. A man wearing a genuine leather jacket makes a bee-line for the emptier section, oblivious the sudden, intrigued hush. Lance notices how _young_ he seems, with that black hair curling slightly underneath his ears and on his neck. But the guy is definitely not a teenager like him.

Gotta be at least in his early twenties.

His clothes are dark and loose-fitting, just like the jacket practically swallowing the young man up, covered in rows of silvery glinting studs and zippers on the lower sleeves.

The only part of him not parading _badass_ vibes is his pale skin, the new-looking, chestnut brown boots with straps, and a tinge of bruising-red quality on the man's lips. Like they were kissed or punched that way. Could be both. Lance wasn't about to judge him about it.

Wasting no time, the man orders a shot of the cheapass whiskey, no ice or chaser. He laces his fingers together, waiting patiently. There's a pair of black, fingerless gloves on the man's hands. _He's gotta have a name_ , Lance thinks. He's getting real tired of not knowing. After watching him for another moment, Lance takes a hold of his drink, walking around him.

Upon inspection, the back of the leather jacket looks aged and weathered, etched with the purple and yellow words " **BLADES OF MARMORA** " but there's no other details to it.

Lance makes himself at home, dropping into the next stool, carefully setting down his ale.

"You must be new this part of town, cowboy," he announces, grinning and narrowing his eyes, lowering his voice to a near seductive octave. "Hey… The name's Lance."

The man doesn't gaze at him, digging around his pockets.

" _Keith_."

Lance's mouth goes dry. God, maybe he _is_ a little bit of cowboy or something. The accent is soft. Keith finds what he's looking for, putting a cigarette between his teeth and lighting it with his Zippo with a quick wrist-flick. Something about how Keith moves, with all of this weight and purpose, makes Lance's stomach go into perfectly aerial somersaults.

"So… uh, you part of a bike gang or what?" Lance catches himself exhaling sharply, trying to regain his confidence. "I could guess with the getup, but you got friends coming this way?"

When nothing is said, and Keith gulps down his whiskey, Lance stares him over. The bartender shakes her head, mouthing " _no chance_ " to Lance and he scrunches his face in retaliation, tempted to flip her off. But that would mean she would stop serving him alcohol illegally.

"You're not much of a talker. I respect that." Lance moves in, timing it for their bare fingertips to caress when Keith shoves away his shot-glass. "It's kinda hot…" he murmurs, witnessing gleefully as Keith's blue-grey eyes widen and actually _look_ at Lance's face. The victory is short-lived when Keith's mobile phone ends up on the counter, flung out by his right hand, and as the other man bends himself over and scrolls through it.

Lance feels himself pouting at the snub and then straightens up. "Whatcha reading?"

"Sonnet."

"You mean like some Shakespeare junk?" He recovers, grabbing Keith's phone and holding it up with both hands, thumbing down the page slowly. Thankfully, Keith doesn't push him or kick his ass or snatch back his personal item. " _So I, for the fear of trust, forget to say/The perfect ceremony of love's rite_ ," Lance recites airily, dramatically. "Sounds kinda hokey."

Keith's lips twitch up.

"Maybe," he says, somewhere between a deadpan and a Southern accent.

Lance returns the phone to the counter, now grinning and moving closer again, pressing their knees. "You got a cute smile. I like it." He touches his hand to Keith's shoulder, attempting to casually put his arm around him. "What do ya say? You and me could get outta here and—?"

It takes an uncomfortably long moment before Lance realizes Keith has one of his hands lightly gripping around a switch-blade. Its opened, steel blade gently nudges once more against Lance's abdomen.

"That's now you got the Blades name, huh?" Lance examines Keith's solemn, unmoved expression, backing off and returning to his stool. "I gotcha, I gotcha." He sips on his red ale, licking the foam from the glass's rim. "To be honest… that really just makes you _insanely_ _hotter_ than you were five minutes ago. Normally I would take offense to a guy that pulls a dagger on me—"

" _Knife_ ," Keith corrects him immediately, flipping the blade secure and shut.

"Where you from, Keith?"

"Austin."

"Texas? Like actually Texas?" Lance's eyebrows go up as the man nods. He whistles. "Damn… and you came all the way up to Nevada to hook up with little ole me. I'm flattered." Keith doesn't say anything but chuckles, his mouth flattening to prevent a real smile. Lance wants it. He wants to see his beautiful, _weird_ man smile so hard it strains. "I work the strip. Big flashy lights and midnight shows. You get tipped pretty well especially during summer."

Keith eyes him. "Stripper?"

"No, but it's crossed my mind once or twice." He's not old enough to get around the ordinances and Lance already owes some favors for being able to work at the levels he's at. "Aerialist," Lance speaks up again, cheerfully, placing a hand under his chin. "I'm a performer. Sometimes erotic but you gotta watch your dick and the silks when they wind up…"

It goes on like this for a while, Lance talking and gesturing wildly, while Keith listens. It's oddly familial. It's almost like a brotherly connection. Not _too_ brotherly.

Weirder than _weird_ since they exchange a hot, spit-sticky kiss or two in the restroom, slamming against a wall and grinding. Keith's tongue drags along Lance's molars, sucking and slurping and massaging on his own tongue, until there's whiteout stars behind his eyelids.

Lance returns to his truck, cupping a hand over his forehead and watching in bittersweet longing as Keith's motorcycle vanishes into the distance as nothing more but a dark speck.

At least he knows a real cowboy when they love and leave you breathless.

 _More than that tongue that more hath more expressed._

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 _Voltron isn't mine. Well, well... I signed up for the Klance Poetry Exchange on Tumblr and was assigned "klanstability" which no not The Klan I had a mini heart attack seeing that but no it's definitely a Klance URL! Check out their blog if you want some positive Klance! They asked for something with Shakespeare's Sonnet 23 and just kinda took it wherever it led me. Idk well I hope everybody reading liked it and if you did, please leave me a nice word or two! It helps me out!  
_


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